Kristi Noem and her rumored lover have been accused of forcing out more than a dozen Customs and Border Protection employees over tensions with the agency’s commissioner, who is known for pushing back at them.
At the direction of the ousted Homeland Security secretary, 54, and Corey Lewandowski, 52, more than 15 federal employees were forced to retire, resign, relocate, or were terminated from senior roles at CBP, sources told The Washington Examiner.
Several of them were award-winning staffers who had served the agency for decades.
The agency is led by Commissioner Rodney Scott, a Border Patrol veteran with three decades of experience—and a reputation for standing up to Noem and Lewandowski.
In January, the Examiner reported that the DHS duo had launched a crusade to pressure Scott into resigning, including by abruptly firing his staff. Because Scott was confirmed by the Senate, only President Donald Trump has the authority to fire him.
Sources told the outlet that Scott first took issue with leadership at the Department of Homeland Security because he believed that Lewandowski had been working more than the 130 days allowable under his designation as a special government employee.
Scott had become known among senior CBP and DHS officials for contesting Noem and Lewandowski’s strategies to enforce Trump’s promised mass deportation blitz and for involving CBP employees in the effort, even though they are typically assigned at the border, not in the interior of the country.
Last month, the Daily Beast reported that Noem iced out Scott as she was preparing to face the Senate Judiciary Committee over the fatal immigration operations in Minneapolis, fearing that the CBP commissioner would not provide her with the narrative she wanted. The DHS disputed the accounts of agency insiders, saying it was operating as “one team.”
The first termination occurred last October when DHS leadership ordered Scott to fire Andrea Bright, an assistant commissioner at CBP’s human resources arm, according to the Examiner.
Noem and Lewandowski were said to have been irate at how long it was taking Bright’s office to move CBP agents in field roles into senior positions at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which also falls under the DHS.
Several more officials were pushed out in December and January, including John Modlin, CBP’s acting second-in-command who was awarded the Presidential Rank Award in 2024 for exceptional service.
He chose to retire after being given a week to decide whether to resign, retire, or relocate his family to Boston for an unrelated job within DHS.
“I don’t think for one minute Donald Trump knows that a 30-year veteran of the Border Patrol [Modlin], who grinded out the whole entirety of the Biden administration, most of it in Washington, is getting treated like he just walked in off a f—--g bus,” a source told the Examiner in January.
Scott’s chief of staff, James Kernochan, was also abruptly moved to USCIS in December.
When reached for comment on this story, Lewandowski described it as “More Fake News.”
“People move positions in the government all the time,” he told the Daily Beast.
The DHS and CBP did not immediately return a request for comment on Thursday.
